Chapter 245: After 9 years (5)
He emptied his glass of wine again, and Levidian quietly refilled it. He said,
“Memories should remain as memories. The fact that she can’t come back, as sad as it is, we have to accept it and look towards the future. We can think of her while looking at our lovely daughter, but in order not to equate her with our daughter, we must acknowledge that our paths have diverged. And I haven’t…… acknowledged that until now.”
A parting that could be called sudden. A past he didn’t want to accept. So he tried to fix it. If he could fix it somehow now, he was going to try.
But the past cannot be fixed.
He cannot deny the time he has lived through.
“To realize such a simple thing now, even while living my second life…… I am a fool. I now understand why people cherish their one life.”
That’s how people are.
They look back on the past that cannot be fixed, but appreciate the past that has made them who they are, and pioneer the future.
They must move forward, carrying in their hearts the wounds that are all the more precious because they cannot be healed.
Levidian smiled faintly. This man always chooses the right path he must take. Even if that choice is difficult and arduous, he chooses it knowing he will not regret it.
Risel looked at Levidian.
“I am such a fool. To realize with such difficulty, to decide, and to struggle with the pain that decision brings……”
“Shh. It’s alright. Because your decision is the right one.”
She quietly smiled and gently pressed her finger against his lips. And she said the most wonderful words she could. To praise him, to comfort him.
“Even such a fool, I love you. Our child sleeping soundly. And the child who is now in another world. I love you.”
She lightly embraced his neck.
“You’ve finally broken free from the shackles of the past. Congratulations. This is my reward for you.”
She gently pressed his lips.
With her lips, not her fingers.
The bright moon cast their overlapping shadows onto the terrace.
Risel was bewildered.
He had definitely fallen asleep holding Levidian in his arms. But when he opened his eyes, he found himself on a hilltop, facing the setting sun beyond the sea, feeling the salty breeze on his face.
Furthermore, the person in front of him was someone who couldn’t exist.
The man with white hair, and odd eyes, one black and one blue, just like Risel, smiled faintly.
“It’s been a while.”
“Artshever…… you’re not dead?”
“No, I am dead. But I haven’t disappeared.”
“Ah, I see. Is this a dream? You are a fragment of my memory appearing in my dream.”
Artshever raised a finger. The former Emperor’s confidant, still considered a wicked schemer by many, wagged his finger from side to side.
Risel wanted to know what that meant. And at the same time, he realized that he couldn’t feel a shred of his emotions or thoughts. Risel tilted his head, and Artshever spoke.
“I am the lingering regret.”
“Lingering regret?”
“You remember, after I died, I rose again to leave a will. You can think of it as similar to that. The part of me that had assimilated with you remains. Those parts have gathered together and are trying to leave your body for the last time. So today is the first and last day I will meet you.”
“Leave? Why?”
“That’s because you have come to terms with your past self. I am you, and my regret is your regret. Since you’ve decided to let go of your regret, I, a fragment of that regret, am also leaving. To leave as soon as I become aware of my own existence, I am quite a depressing fellow.”
He shrugged with a somewhat sorrowful expression. Risel gave a bitter smile at the sight. If his words were true, he had been with him for 9 years.
“Now I’m finally feeling clean. That’s refreshing.”
“You’re like this until the very end. Well, you’ve always been that way. Ah, and I’m not the only one here. Look over there.”
He pointed to the beach below the hill. There, Aila, the young girl born as Risel’s daughter, was playing in the water. She had a relaxed expression, free from any worries.
“Why is she here?”
“The remnants of the friend you had within your young daughter are also disappearing today. That’s why she appears like that. She’s about to leave on a journey down memory lane with me.”
“With you?”
“Yes. Both I and Aila will now remain only as memories within you. Although ordinary people don’t realize it, memories become like this, turning into nostalgia at a certain point. There are times when a painful or unpleasant past suddenly becomes something you can laugh about, right? That’s what will happen to me and that child.”
Risel shook his head. He wondered if this, too, would become a memory, a nostalgic one. Then he suddenly looked around.
The place he had thought was an ordinary hill was actually a hill behind a city.
It was a very strange city. It was quite similar to the Imperial Capital, but what appeared to be boulders or large crystals were floating everywhere in the sky above the city.
Artshever smiled faintly and explained.
“It’s the Imperial Capital. The city where your friend Aila was born and raised. Even in a parallel dimension, the appearance of the world is slightly different. Here, the Imperial Capital is located by the sea.”
“Ah, I see. I should remember this and tell Levidian. She was very curious about the place where Aila lived.”
“No, that’s impossible.”
“What?”
Risel turned his head in surprise. Artshever, with the left half of his body bathed in the orange glow of the setting sun, answered his question with a sad smile.
“Didn’t I say? This is the moment when memories become nostalgia. This memory will become the most distant part of that nostalgia. It’s heading towards the river of oblivion. If you remembered something like this, it couldn’t become a memory, could it?”
“I see. That’s true. I guess I’ll wake up and shake my head, wondering what kind of dream I had.”
“Just like many dreams that many people have.”
Risel crossed his arms and looked at the beach again. The little Aila, playing with the waves while holding her skirt, soon spotted the two and waved.
Even though he couldn’t see her face clearly from a distance, Risel thought she was smiling brightly. So he waved back at the memory that would become nostalgia.
“It’s been 9 years since then. You became the Emperor, and the parallel dimensions started to diverge again. However, now your daughter, not you, will lead that divergence.”
“Speaking of which, I was curious. Are you really a bastard child of the world, born from God’s mistake? If so……”
“You’re asking if I can guarantee that the same thing won’t happen to my daughter, right? No. Your worry, like most worries that everyone else has, is unnecessary. Perhaps my regrets were too great at the moment of my death. Hair that didn’t resemble my parents at all, and a first life where I wasn’t loved by my mother. That regret must have been greater than yours. When I first died, I was determined to take revenge on the world that made me this way. I never imagined that it would come true…… As time passed, revenge became nothing more than a futile act. So I lived my second life meaningfully, and I was happy while I was with her. I had a family and a position that was envied by many. Thinking about it now, I also have many such happy memories.”
He shrugged, and Risel nodded. Even though a part of the Parallel Dimension Eruption Ability was engraved in his soul, it was his will that awakened that incomplete ability.
In the endless cycle of life that never stopped, the only thing he had to choose was a great love-hate relationship with the world.
As Risel was thinking this, Artshever made a mischievous expression.
“Speaking of which, there’s no news of another child, is there? The ministers seem to be quite concerned about the succession.”
“Ah, right. You saw everything while you were inside me. Tsk. That’s why I hated becoming the Emperor. To continue the lineage, I have to have a son. A child should be born out of the love of their parents, not out of the need for a successor. Such an obvious fact is too easily forgotten.”
“That’s not the only thing you’re worried about, is it? As far as you know, you only had one child. Hehe.”
He laughed meaningfully, and Risel tilted his head. Then he made a suspicious expression.
“Don’t tell me……?”
“You can look forward to it. And you’ll have to work hard. I told you, I had a family that was envied by many.”
“Ugh! Puhahaha! Was that so? Hahaha! That’ll be fun!”
Risel burst into laughter, bending over. Artshever smiled faintly at the sight. Now there was a pure ‘another Arisein’ who had no love-hate relationship with the world, nor with himself.
After laughing for a long time, Risel finally stopped. He said to Artshever,
“Hey, Alse.”
“Oh, you called me by my nickname for the first time. This is making me happy even though I’m just a lingering regret. Hahaha! Yes, what can I do for you?”
“I want to hear your story. Even if I forget it, even if I can’t remember it when I wake up, I want to hear how you lived. You loved this world deeply, so you must have many happy memories, right?”
“I’m just a fragment, so I don’t have much left, but is that okay?”
Risel smiled faintly and nodded.
On the hill bathed in the never-setting sunset, he listened to a story he didn’t want to forget, but would become a memory.
A story that wasn’t his, but could have been.
That story
Continued until
The man holding the hand of the child playing on the beach
Walked towards the strangely shaped city
And its gate closed.
With a gentle shake, he opened his eyes. Beside him, his wife, Levidian, was shaking him awake.
“Ah…… Ibi.”
“Risel, did you have a bad dream?”
“Huh? What……?”
He touched his eyes in wonder. For some reason, he could feel the tears that had flowed from his eyes where his fingers touched. Levidian, with a worried look on her face, recalled the conversation they had had the night before.
“Does your heart still ache?”
“No…… that’s not it……”
He tried to recall his dream. He couldn’t remember anything. Only a very important, very joyful, and very distant feeling filled his heart.
“I…… I don’t know either.”
Risel shook his head, wiping his eyes. After wiping his eyes, there was his wife’s beautiful face, looking at him with worry. He grinned and brought his hand to her face.
Levidian, her cheek resting against his gentle touch, spoke in a low voice.
“If it’s because of what we talked about yesterday……”
You don’t have to force yourself to forget. She meant to say that, but Risel shook his head.
“That’s not it. It’s only been a day, but I only feel a faint nostalgia. However, somehow……I feel like I had a very happy and sad dream. It’s probably because I made that decision yesterday.”
“But you were crying in your sleep.”
“It’s not usual, but don’t worry. It might have just been a random occurrence. By the way, Ibi.”
“Yes.”
She placed her hand over her husband’s hand, which was stroking her cheek. Risel, feeling his wife with his palm and the back of his hand, said with a grin.
“Whether it’s a son or a daughter, shall we try for a second child?”
“Huh?”
“I think this time we can fight with happy worries, what do you think?”
“Ri, Risel!”
Seeing his wife yelling in surprise, Risel burst into laughter. Levidian, her face flushed red, looked at him like that and then turned her head away, which made Risel’s laughter even louder.
That’s how the Emperor and Empress of the Empire greeted the morning.
Six months later. The citizens of the Empire cheered and held festivals at the announcement that the Empress was expecting her second child.
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